Origin

In the senses ‘gentle and kind’ and ‘sensitive to pain or damage’, tender goes back to Latin tener ‘delicate’. It appears in a number of phrases relating to feeling for others. Tender loving care goes back to Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3: ‘Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me / I thank them for their tender loving care.’ Its abbreviation TLC is comparatively modern, dating from the 1940s. The phrase tender mercies was probably originally a biblical allusion to a verse in the Book of Proverbs: ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ The tender in ‘an invitation to tender’ is a different word that was originally a legal term meaning ‘to formally offer a plea, evidence or the money to discharge a debt’. It comes ultimately from Latin tendere ‘to stretch, hold out’, also the source of tend (Middle English), first found in the sense ‘move or be inclined to move in a certain direction’.

Origin

Mid 16th century (as a legal term meaning 'formally offer a plea or evidence, or money to discharge a debt', also as a noun denoting such an offer): from Old Frenchtendre, from Latintendere 'to stretch, hold forth' (see tend1).

In the senses ‘gentle and kind’ and ‘sensitive to pain or damage’, tender goes back to Latin tener ‘delicate’. It appears in a number of phrases relating to feeling for others. Tender loving care goes back to Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3: ‘Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me / I thank them for their tender loving care.’ Its abbreviation TLC is comparatively modern, dating from the 1940s. The phrase tender mercies was probably originally a biblical allusion to a verse in the Book of Proverbs: ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ The tender in ‘an invitation to tender’ is a different word that was originally a legal term meaning ‘to formally offer a plea, evidence or the money to discharge a debt’. It comes ultimately from Latin tendere ‘to stretch, hold out’, also the source of tend (Middle English), first found in the sense ‘move or be inclined to move in a certain direction’.

Origin

In the senses ‘gentle and kind’ and ‘sensitive to pain or damage’, tender goes back to Latin tener ‘delicate’. It appears in a number of phrases relating to feeling for others. Tender loving care goes back to Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3: ‘Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me / I thank them for their tender loving care.’ Its abbreviation TLC is comparatively modern, dating from the 1940s. The phrase tender mercies was probably originally a biblical allusion to a verse in the Book of Proverbs: ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ The tender in ‘an invitation to tender’ is a different word that was originally a legal term meaning ‘to formally offer a plea, evidence or the money to discharge a debt’. It comes ultimately from Latin tendere ‘to stretch, hold out’, also the source of tend (Middle English), first found in the sense ‘move or be inclined to move in a certain direction’.